Gloucestershire 12U Boys team lead by team captain Nick Edwards, travelled to Halton to take part in the AEGON 12U County Cup on the 2th June and 1st July.
The team were: Rhodri Atkinson, Tom Carter, James Holden, Seth Price.
Full results from the weekend can be found here, with a round up from Mark below. Information on the AEGON County Cup can be found here.
"We started the first day of the county cup event by playing Hertfordshire and Middlesex, which was the toughest challenge in the group. The team knew it would be a difficult but they were up for it and wanted the challenge of playing some of the best boys in the county.
Rhodri and Tom went on to play there singles first and both played a very tense 1st set with Rhodri just losing the first set in the tie-break and Tom losing the first set 5-3. They were both playing great tennis and unfortunately after both losing a few sudden death deuce games both lost 4-2 in the second set. James Holden then went on to play at number 3. After losing the first set 4-2 James was on his way back in the 2nd set leading 3-1 only to slip during the point, pulling a muscle. After a 5 minute injury break James wanted to carry on and try and close out the set. Unfortunately James then went on to lose the set 5-3.
Gloucestershire then went on to play Middlesex. Seth Price now stepped in along with Tom Carter and Rhodri Atkinson. The boys now had to pick themselves up after losing 3 close matches to Hertfordshire. Unfortunately Seth and Rhodri lost to 2 very good players whilst Tom played a fantastic match to beat Great Britain No. 4 Maxime Trenikhin.
We then went on to play doubles against both counties. Rhodri and Tom played against Middlesex and James and Seth played Hertfordshire. Unfortunately the boys both lost in straight sets.
The following day we had Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Rhodri, Tom and James went on to play singles with Rhodri and Tom winning in straight sets and James losing a very close tie-break to lose the match. Oxfordshire was next with Rhodri, Tom and Seth playing singles. Rhodri and Seth had a great battle but both lost two very close sets. Tom was then on the way to losing his match when he found himself 6-1 down in the 3rd set tiebreak. With great spirit he then battled back to win the 3rd set 10-8
We then had the same team going out for our doubles. Rhodri and Tom playing Oxfordshire and Seth and James playing Buckinghamshire. Both the boys were now playing some great doubles and trying out different tactics that we had been practicing in training. Unfortunately Rhodri and Tom came across some good doubles players and lost in 3 sets. James and Seth now had to beat Buckinghamshire to secure the win against them. After playing fantastic together they took the first set 4-1. They then went on to lose the next 2 sets. We had to then play tiebreak shoot outs against both counties to secure 3rd place in the group. We lost both doubles after a few heads dropped.
Unfortunately we ended up 5th in the group. However the team showed great spirit throughout the event and with some very close matches the result could of gone either way.
Great effort and better luck next year."
Nick Edwards
Gloucestershire 12U Boys Team Captain